1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to maintenance mediation apparatuses, maintenance target apparatus maintenance methods, and maintenance systems, and more particularly to a maintenance mediation apparatus, a maintenance target apparatus maintenance method, and a maintenance system that can remotely maintain multiple apparatuses to be maintained in accordance with a consistent maintenance policy through a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Products such as a digital multifunction product and an electronic document management system require periodic maintenance such as state monitoring and software updating in order to prevent the occurrence of failure after introduction of the products by an administrator. Conventionally, remote maintenance services are provided because it is not efficient to perform maintenance operations where the products are installed.
In the conventional remote maintenance services, a telephone line is connected to a digital multifunction product (apparatus) to be maintained, and a maintenance operation is performed through the telephone line from the apparatus to be maintained. For instance, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-132364 discloses a remote system that enables suitable maintenance to be provided without a service person visiting the location of an administrator. According to this remote system, abnormalities in an apparatus are detected and the contents of the abnormalities are classified in a remote place, so that suitable maintenance can be provided in accordance with the classified contents of the abnormalities.
When the configuration of such a remote system is studied, with recent popularization of networks, it is also considered to connect the apparatus to be maintained to a network. If it is possible to provide remote maintenance through not only a telephone line but also a network, it is possible to maintain an apparatus to be maintained through the network, thus resulting in many advantages. For instance, it is possible to deal with failure instantaneously.
However, granting free access to a user apparatus through a network entails many inconveniences in terms of security. Further, sense of security and a required level of security differ among users. Accordingly, it is difficult to uniformly determine how to maintain an apparatus to be maintained. Therefore, it has been requested that a maintainable range be determined for each user of an apparatus to be maintained and that maintenance be provided through a network in accordance with the maintainable range of each user. That is, in remotely maintainable apparatuses, it is desirable that how to provide maintenance be determined apparatus user by apparatus user.
In view of the above request, it has been proposed to limit a maintainable range at the time of remotely maintaining an apparatus to be maintained by presetting the maintainable range in the apparatus to be maintained. According to this technique, the maintainable range can be set by an authenticated user-side administrator. In the case of remote maintenance, it is possible to prevent maintenance operations other than those set.
According to the above-described technique, however, there is no disclosure of a method of writing a maintainable range. Accordingly, how to set a maintainable range in accordance with a user's maintenance policy is not clear.
Further, according to the above-described technique, only a maintenance mode where an apparatus to be maintained is accessed from a remote maintenance center providing maintenance from a remote place is disclosed. It is not assumed that the apparatus to be maintained transmits maintenance information such as the number of copies made and the amount of residual toner to the remote maintenance center. The remote maintenance center has to access all apparatuses to be maintained under its management in order to obtain maintenance information.
In addition, normally, a so-called firewall is provided in the course of accessing an apparatus from an external network. Accordingly, it is difficult to access an apparatus to be maintained and receive maintenance information therefrom through the external network.
Further, it may be assumed that some users have an apparatus to be maintained that has no function of receiving remote maintenance from the remote maintenance center. In this case, it results in an increase in cost to provide such a function in the apparatus to be maintained. On the other hand, if a user has multiple apparatuses to be maintained with the function of receiving remote maintenance, it is troublesome to set a maintenance policy apparatus by apparatus. In particular, if the apparatuses to be maintained are of different types, it is difficult to share a maintenance policy.